Offside breakaway -- when to raise flag?

This is something you should have learned on day 1 of an entry level course and if your instructors didn't cover it they failed.

Yes, it is common knowledge and instruction to raise an early flag in these situations to prevent an unnecessary collision.

 

That is a bit harsh. In games they show on TV, these collisions are common.

But moving towards the ball, to me, means the player is playing the ball. Blow the whistle.

 

And see diagram 4 in the OS diagrams at the back of the law book.

A player in an offside position (A) may be penalised before playing or touching the ball, if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an onside position has the opportunity to play the ball.​

If only an OSP player is pursuing the ball for the attacking team, with no teammates having a chance to get there, the OSP player can be flagged for interfering with play before he actually gets to the ball. (I think of it as the "why waste time" concept--if OS is inevitable, we don't have to wait.)

In the potential collision scenario, I don't think it is a specie of interfering with an opponent--it doesn't meet any of the definitions. It is a version of Diagram 4. While Diagram 4 does not have an opponent pursuing the ball, the same concept adheres: the OSP player is pursuing and nothing in his favor can happen--he can get to the ball first and be OS for interfering with play, he can get so close that he is challenging an opponent and thereby OS, the GK can collect the ball, or he can foul the GK.

(The one caveat would be that if the attacker pulls up, he could benefit if the GK deflects/fumbles the ball (other than a save), as the play by the GK would reset OS. But where a collision appears likely, that concern far outweighs any theoretical possibility of a deflection.)

Where the AR should not flag early is where there is one OSP player and one non-OSP player pursuing. That becomes the classic "wait and see" scenario. (Though, especially at youth levels, we are going to err on the side of avoiding the collisions--the pros probably want to be sure the OSP player is the one who would get there first; at the youth level, we are probably satisfied with "probably" because we err on the side of protecting the kids.)

 

This is an incorrect statement and will lead to incorrect decisions. Play is defined in the Laws:

Played
Action by a player which makes contact with the ball​

Diagram 4, as discussed above provides a limited scenario in which we make the call before the actual interference with play takes place. But we can only do that when the OSP player is the only attacker with a chance to get the ball. Where two players (one OSP and one not-OSP) are pursuing the ball, "moving towards the ball" is absolutely positively not enough to justify an OS call.

 

Firstly, those slides are old (6 or 7 years at least).
But as @socal lurker said, the advice still apply. This is the good old diagram 4 (still in the LotG, page 196 of the current book).

No...
As SoCal explained if an onside attacker is involved then you have to let play continue. The offence doesn't happen at any different time than usual, you are simply allowed to call the offence ahead of happening in situations where the only alternative to an offence happening is a situation where the risk of injury is high (collision or such). It is unnecessary to risk the injury when there is no possible "good" outcome for the attacker.

 

So, you are saying a player can't be flagged for offside unless they touch the ball?

You might want to try again.

 

I got bit twice this season trying to judge between this situation and an advantage situation. Long ball to a player in OSP, but I judged it easily collected by the keeper without interference. Both times the keeper slowed the run and collected the ball just before the collision. Neither collision was big enough to cause injury (lucky for me), but both situations where I failed to protect the kids properly.

 

You can also be flagged for interfering with an opponent, which includes attempting to play the ball. Playing is touching the ball.

 

He doesn't need another try because that's not what he said.

 

Don't be obtuse, of course he can. But to play the ball you have to touch it and to be guilty of "interfering with play" you have to play the ball. (Except in this specific situation discussed here, but you have too look at it in the right way otherwise you might well end up in trouble when making the call on other situations.)

 

I think we're getting a bit into the weeds here.

I had a new AR this weekend who constantly allowed a player to breakaway while offside to run 40 yards before raising his flag. EVERYONE was ticked about it, myself included.

I explained it to him like this:

If it's CLEAR to you, that the player is in an offside position when the ball is played and it is CLEAR that he is alone, going to try to play the ball, don't waste his energy, yours, or mine by running down field with him before he touches the ball. If there's nobody else from his team chasing the ball, then raise your flag when it's CLEAR. If I believe the Gk will collect the ball well before he can interfere I'll wave you down, otherwise, just stay there with flag raised, just in case.

Maybe a case of YHTBT, but it was a case of a high defensive line and an attacking player CONSTANTLY offside on attempted direct played balls over the top and the attacker being offside after running 30-40 yard sprints to the ball. Isn't this a case of being offside while not actually touching the ball? I think in the spirit of the law it's better to call him offside when it's CLEAR, because it wastes no time or energy and it gives the defending team an advantage by placing the free kick higher up the pitch. If we waited until the last second every time, then it's to the attacking team's advantage to play a crazy high offside player, no?

 

Yup--that would be diagram 4!

 

Just putting instructor hat on for a moment....I think some confusion for new referees comes from the IFAB using British terminology and some old football phrasing that goes back a long way. You can read a lot of the LOTG by substituting the word "play" (when used as a noun) by the word "ball". Then interfering with "play" becomes interfering with "ball"...and the specificity begins to make sense.
Also.."interfering with an opponent" makes sense when you imagine what the scenario will look like if one takes the player IOP out of the equation. Would the defender have made a different play (as a verb) on the ball? If the answer is yes, then the defender was probably interfered with.
Please take these comments in context...that is...for newer referees grasping the initial concept. Not meant to address all the nuances of upper level play.

 

While I agree that we have to be careful with newbies and not making their heads explode, I disagree with this simplification as a good way to teach newbies (though it probably was a few years ago). Applying that standard, too many newbies are going to go with the "well, the GK was going to worry about that other attacker" or "the defender didn't know which player to cover"--those are myths that are hard enough to overcome. I think it is better to focus on the idea that the OSP player must do something, and that it must be close to the ball or a defender and impact the defender.

 

Yeah...I see what you are saying, so if I re-phrase it like this?
Also.."interfering with an opponent" makes sense when you imagine what the scenario will look like if one takes the player IOP, (who is doing something such as moving toward the ball or a defender) out of the equation. Would the defender have made a different play (as a verb) on the ball? If the answer is yes, then the defender was probably interfered with.

 

I wouldn't recommend distilling it down to your statement above. Stick with the idea that if the attacker in an offside position chases after the ball and is the only attacking player with any reasonable chance to play the ball, raise the flag.

 

That is probably closer, but once the defender touches the ball, there is no longer a potential OS offence. The attacker can run toward the ball/defender to put himself in a position to challenge once the defender has the ball.

 

The challenge in teaching offside to new refs is that it is impossible to cover everything in a way that it sinks in. While those who have played/coached think they understand it, very few actually do--they know a bunch, but part of what they "know" is typically outdated or never was correct in the first place. So we all make choices as to what is covered and what is glossed over or simplified. That said, I would expect every referee instructor to address the collision scenario--but just because it is addressed doesn't mean that anyone remembers it.

But as for your question, I don't think the GK reacting is a relevant factor on the breakaway. (Interference with an opponent can't happen 30 yards from the opponent and off the ball.) I'd suggest the factors you are looking for are these:

• Is only an OSP attacker pursing the ball and is he likely to get it? If yes, flag.
• Is only an OSP attacker pursuing the ball and is there a reasonable likelihood of a collision with the GK? If yes, flag.
• Are an OSP attacker and a non-OSP player pursuing the ball? If yes, hold the flag and wait to see what happens.
  • If the OSP player gets to the ball first, flag.
  • If the OSP player makes contact with a defender, probably flag for interfering with an opponent
  • If it becomes apparent that the OSP player is going to get the ball, then flag.
  • If it becomes apparent that the OSP player is going to arrive at the ball at the same time as the GK, then flag.(The younger the players, the more aggressive to be with this flag.)
  • If the non-OSP player stops pursuing, then flag.

Hope that is helpful.

 

All of these simplifications have problems--moving toward the ball isn't enough. If there is not contact with an opponent or blocked vision, interfering with an opponent can only be one of three things:

• challenging an opponent for the ball or
  
• clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
• making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball

Just moving towards the ball or defender doesn't match any of these.

I think you are better off with something like "does something close to the ball or the opponent that makes it hard for the opponent to play the ball"

(These ongoing tweaks and nuances are part of why coaches and players don't understand offside--too many refs haven't absorbed the nuance, so there is no consistency whatsoever at lower levels. I've, sadly, had Rs simply refuse to follow the changes because they don't agree with them!)

 

Or makes the opponent change from playing the ball to attempting to prevent the OSP player from playing the ball?

 

Seems to me that a defender only does that if what the attacker is doing makes it hard for him to play the ball, so its already captured, but adding it wouldn't offend me in terms of trying to offer a simplified summary. But I think, when simplifying, the key concept is to make sure that the instruction requires the OSP attacker to do something, not just be in a position.

(In my experience, newbies are far more likely to flag an OSP player who has not yet interfered with play or an opponent (under modern interpretations), than to under flag because they think a player is not yet involved. Failure to flag tends to be driven by the lack of confidence or awareness to make the call in the first place.)

 

True, I may have been redundant. I was asking the same question as SCV-Ref a month or two ago and am still trying to get a grip on the line between involvement and not.

As a side story, I had an interesting OS situation a few weeks ago that I don't think I've shared yet. I was working with a young AR and had waved away 2 OS flags from him. One was for a ball that came off a defender so wasn't OS, and the other an early flag and the defender got to the ball first. Then the interesting situation happened. There was a fairly long pass to a girl in OSP. She had been called twice already and knew she was OS, so she ran away from the ball and hovered about 3 steps in front of the defender, waiting for the defender to bring her out of OSP. The ball bounced high, the defender jumped and tried to head it, but missed. The attacker let the ball bounce again after the missed header and then buried it in the back of the net. Flag goes up. Long discussion with the AR to make sure I understood what he saw and the sequence of events, and called the OS.